Port to Patio—Mastering Logistics Lingo in Latin-American Spanish
A warehouse mix-up that taught me the power of one word Back when I imported Dominican cacao nibs to Medellín cafés, our shipper emailed: “Faltan los DNIs para nacionalización.” I thought they wanted national ID numbers; turns out DNI in Peru means Declaración de Número de Ítem—a customs code. My pallet camped an extra week […]
Signing in Two Languages: Navigating NDAs and Contract Negotiations in Legal Spanish
A signature that almost sank the deal Three years back, a Barcelona startup flew me to Bogotá to hash out a distribution contract with a Colombian fintech. I handed over our polished NDA—glossy logo, perfect English—and watched the local counsel squint at phrases like “governing law” and “injunctive relief.” She slid the paper back, smiled […]
Managing Up en Español: Pushing Back Without Burning Puentes
The morning I almost said “no” in the wrong way Nine years ago, fresh off the plane from a Medellín work trip, I opened my laptop in Santo Domingo to an email barrage from my Dominican director. He wanted a 40-page market report “para ayer.” I drafted a blunt reply—“Impossible, necesita más tiempo.” Then I […]
From “¿Me regala un minuto?” to Closing the Deal—Cold-Calling Scripts That Work Across Latin America
I cut my sales teeth on the sun-baked streets of Santo Domingo, hustling a SaaS platform that nobody could pronounce. We were bootstrapped, hungry, and convinced that if we just dialed faster we would sell more. One Tuesday I cranked out seventy calls using an English script awkwardly translated by Google: “Hola, este es James […]
Dialing for Gold: Crafting Cold-Calling Scripts That Resonate in Spanish-Speaking Markets
I once coached a Dominican sales squad that sold cloud storage to small Colombian clinics. They opened every call with the literal translation of their English opener—“¿Tiene un minuto para hablar de la nube?”—and wondered why most lines went dead in four seconds. In Medellín, la nube means “bad weather,” not AWS. Prospects pictured thunderstorms, […]
Specs Without Spanglish—Crafting Technical Documents in Plain, Powerful Spanish
The day my API spec became a telenovela Two springs ago in Santo Domingo, I wrote a 12-page API specification for a Colombian client. I sprinkled it with English jargon—“endpoint,” “payload,” “throttle bursts”. The engineering lead skimmed three pages, set it down, and quipped, “James, esto parece libreto de ciencia ficción.” Translation: it read like […]
Pitch Perfect: Crafting 30-Second Business Introductions in Spanish-Speaking Markets
The first time I tried an elevator pitch in Spanish I was, quite literally, in an elevator—inside a slick coworking tower in Bogotá. Between the seventh and twelfth floors I blurted out that my startup “empowers SMEs with ninja-level marketing.” The investor beside me raised an eyebrow. In Colombia, ninja evokes Halloween, not expertise; empoderar […]
Navigating “La Retro”-—Giving and Receiving Performance Reviews in Spanish
I still remember my first retroalimentación meeting in Santo Domingo. My Dominican manager handed me a printed sheet titled *“Revisión Semestral”—*six pages of metrics and comments, half of which were crowned with the mysterious phrase “a mejorar.” I’d walked in expecting a friendly chat; I walked out convinced I was on thin ice. Later that […]
Smoothing the Edges: Diplomatic Spanish for Handling Client Feedback
I learned the hard way that a Dominican “no hay problema” doesn’t always mean the same thing to a Colombian procurement manager. During my first regional project review, I presented mock-ups to a Bogotá client over Zoom. When Camila, the brand lead, frowned and said, “Hay algunos detalles que podríamos revisar,” I instinctively replied, “Perfecto, […]
Getting Everyone on the Same Page: Agenda-Setting Tricks for Bilingual Zoom Meetings
I once spent forty minutes in a Santo Domingo–Madrid product sync arguing about the word “ticket.” Half the call used the English “ticket,” the other half said “incidencia”, and no one knew which issues we’d actually solve. The root problem wasn’t translation—it was the agenda I’d dashed off in Spanglish ten minutes before the call. […]